I Think I'm Going To Die
by Dianne
Summary: "I think I'm going to die," Sherlock told Molly. Didn't that mean she was supposed to be in on all the plans? Then why does he end up on her slab doing a pretty good imitation of a dead person even for her line of work? A slight miscalculation in the wind speed, a small misstep and the best laid plans of mice and consulting detectives … well, a concussed detective. Post Reichenbach
1. Chapter 1

"I think I'm going to die," Sherlock told Molly. Didn't that mean she was supposed to be in on all the plans? Then why does he end up on her slab doing a pretty good imitation of a dead person even for her line of work? A slight miscalculation in the wind speed, a small misstep and even the best laid plans of mice and consulting detectives…

XXXX

_Will crying help them, John?_ Sherlock remembered asking his friend not long ago. The answer was no; and it was still no, but here Sherlock was, on the roof of St. Barts, crying, Moriarty having left the door to the archives of his mind palace wide open after he'd left the building so to speak.

Sherlock stepped to the precipice not wanting to look down. A car backfired from somewhere in the blur below throwing him off balance. He rocked on his heels. His arms windmilled to pull him back – but back to what? His grotesque evil "twin" who just blew his brains out? No, that would only mean more death and either way he'd be alone. The backfire echoed, which was actually a good thing, it drowned out the thrumming of his heart which would soon be silenced. It drowns out John's screaming. This is chance if ever anything was, less than fifty fifty and either way it would end in heartbreak. Somewhere in his childhood tucked away in his bed with a book lying open in sleep-slackened fingers he'd soared with a Lost Boy with no shadow, become a pirate, fought Captain Hook; but consulting detectives can't fly. He lets the next backfire carry him over the edge like a starter's pistol.

XXXX

…Wheels; why were they always squeaky? Didn't anyone else notice those grating, spinning rubber casters that hadn't been oiled for who knew how long? Sherlock clamped his jaws together and counted each click-click of the wheels of the gurney as they rolled over minute grout lines in the tiles of St. Barts. His body hydroplaned around on blood and water in the plastic mat. The cotton sheet over his head dulled the fluorescents flashing overhead and still he counted - _twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one – th – _

And then the lights went out but the gurney didn't slow. Maybe he'd closed his eyes? No. They were open. The voices all around him muted until they were silent and still they sped on. Yet another door bashed open with his head it seemed this time. He forced his eyes closed and swallowed the panic; it was scarcely darker than with them open. And there were supposed to have been three hundred and thirty tiles precisely to the morgue, a hundred and twenty fluorescents, one lift-flight down, two thousand, two hundred, and twenty one licks to get to the center of those wonderful American Tootsie Pops Mycroft had brought home each year at Christmas when he was a kid and yet here he was, formaldehyde doesn't lie … and _where the hell did that memory come from?_ Something was very wrong with his mind palace.

XXXX

If he breathed it was imperceptible under the white sheet that drooped over the steel table. The celebratory air in the morgue annoyed Molly Hooper so much that it wouldn't take Sherlock to point out her intense eye tick.

"Glad you get to do the autopsy," Donovan sneered to Molly making scissor motions with her right hand and picking up a bone saw to inspect with the other. "Almost like revenge for the freak's taunts, eh? Maybe you can give her a hand, Anderson, see what's wrong with his brain." The female cop positively beaming with pride pulled the sheet off of Sherlock's feet. "Wonder if what they say is true, then, about big feet?" She then made to pull the rest of the sheet up to put her naked trophy on display for all to see.

Lestrade cleared his throat, snatching the blood-soaked fabric from his subordinate's hands before she actually got to fulfill her perverted pleasure. "That won't be necessary, besides last I heard you two were going to lift a few pints in celebration."

"Right, we'll save a stool for you at the pub," Donovan called over her shoulder as she shrugged her jacket on, narrowly missing Anderson with a sleeve as the door swung into his face. Anderson sheepishly opened the door and had to speed to keep up with his colleague. Donovan turned around, mouthing to Molly, _let me know_, and pointing to her feet while gesturing toward the figure under the sheet with her index finger wiggling back and forth and that horrible grin on her face.

"Well, I'll leave you to it then, Molly, the head sees no conflict of interest here so…" Lestrade trailed off.

"Leave me to it? There's no _it,_ I mean I don't, you know … what Donovan said…" Molly said helplessly as she covered up Sherlock's feet like they were indecent.

Lestrade put his hand on the much shorter Medical Examiner's shoulder. "Yeah, sorry about Donovan, she can be a bit..."

"Of a pig … I mean that in the … not in the cop way … Ohhh!" Molly stammered.

Lestrade tried his most understanding face on; under any other circumstance this would have been hilarious.

"I'll call you with the results you requested," Molly assured, body language if nothing else escorting Lestrade to the door.

"I'm not going to the pub. I'm going upstairs to check on John; got himself a nasty concussion colliding with a bicycle. The least I can do is tell him he's been released on his own recognizance for punching my boss. I convinced him to drop the charges based on Sherlock's manipulations and the kidnapping." Even as Lestrade said the words aloud it was apparent they were bitter in his mouth. "Then I'm going home, there's nothing to celebrate," he seemed compelled to add.

Molly nodded. She figured as much. It didn't seem to please Lestrade as it had the others that the young man who had been so insufferable to all of them, and a master criminal to boot, was dead. There was even regret on Lestrade's face like there was something missing he couldn't quite put his finger on despite all of the evidence before them laid out like a gift. The door closed, the dark shadow beyond the frosted window disappeared and Molly lifted the sheet.

XXXX

Sherlock would know everyone was gone, even with his eyes closed he would sense the change in the air, the diminished scents, the shuffling of feet on the tiled floor. And he'd confided in her. He knew he could trust her. So why didn't he open his eyes?

"Sherlock? They're gone. I did everything you asked. You can open your eyes now…"

Molly let out an involuntary gasp and stumbled back a step despite the fact that she expected the sharp intake of breath long held by the person on the table. It just wasn't every day that one of her patients moved or breathed.

"It's aliiiiive!" Molly yelled just under her breath, her attempt at humour failing her utterly.

Not that she expected him to laugh.

But he didn't come up with an insult to let her know how utterly _un_-funny she was either.

He didn't open his eyes.

The only thing that betrayed Sherlock's death-like visage was his clamped jaw and the oddly controlled intake of breath that he held so well moments before, even under the glare of the fluorescents and the gloating police gawkers who'd come to pay their last _dis_respects to the criminal mastermind who'd been their puppet master for so long.

"Sherlock, open your eyes, you're scaring me," Molly asked nicely.

It was just like Sherlock to be obstinate at a time like this. To sulk. Just like John Watson had often described in a fit of irritated venting from time to time.

"Sherlock Holmes, you open your eyes this instant!" Molly demanded, hands on her hips that she really surmised he could somehow see, even through his tightly closed eyelids.

So she tried slouching. He always told her off for that.

"Sherlock, this isn't funny. Look, I helped you, what do we do now?" Molly's voice took on an air of pleading. Not that Sherlock ever responded to that…

He opened his eyes, the effort ripping a breath from him like a death rattle. His shaking hand reached for his chest and his lips moved, counting along his ribcage under the goose- bumped flesh in the cooled room.

Molly gathered some clean towels and ran them under warm water, having to make due with hand soap to wipe away the sweat and blood from Sherlock's brow.

But the blood was supposed to come off. Sure, it was _his_ blood; that was the whole point; there could be no mistaking the DNA. It had been a perfect plan. Sherlock was to pour his stored blood over his body just after plummeting out of sight.

"You're bleeding!"

For one second, Sherlock's countenance reverted to his usual, but rather more casual, _well, duh _mode and in that moment he'd silently reminded her that she was a medical examiner and should be used to blood.

"No, don't pull that with me. Not tonight. My patients don't usually bleed anymore. I'm allowed to be a girl about this. Lord knows you don't let me be one any other time," she scolded as she none too gently raked the cloth across his chest eliciting a cry of pain that she was ashamed to admit shocked her. _Sherlock Holmes; if you pricked him, he did indeed bleed. Hm…_

Blood pulsed lazily from a cut above Sherlock's right eye. Molly fished for some bandages in the first aid kit on the wall for mishaps with staff but the cut revealed by a little cleaning would need stitches. She continued her examination. Sherlock's stomach sucked in at her touch as her fingertips lightly palpated his chest.

"Sherlock, your ribs are broken," Molly informed the bruised corpse on the table as she looked around in a bewildered state for a stethoscope. Before Sherlock closed his eyes she made a mental note to look for a penlight to check his pupils which were eclipsing the blue eyes she never noticed … ever.

"Clothes?" Sherlock gasped to Molly who was hustling just out of his sight.

The gurgling in his voice told Molly everything she needed to know before she even put the stethoscope she'd liberated from an office across the hall against his chest.

"I think your left lung is collapsed. You have six broken ribs but I think they're all intact; it must've been the fall. Molly pulled an ancient X-ray machine across to the table.

If Sherlock could have rolled his yes, he would have as Molly set the machine and ran for cover behind a wall.

"It – was – wasn't the f- fall - it was the sudden stop at the bottom," Sherlock ground out through clenched teeth. "If the bloody – weatherman could get his – story straight – There would have been no = open windows f-for me to hit on the way down - GAH! This wouldn't – have happened. I practiced - everything when Mrs Hudson was - attacked and I threw the = perpetrator out the window several times. He was o-okay, well – except for –perhaps some…"

"Sherlock, you have to keep still. I need some pictures of your chest," Molly coaxed. "And strictly speaking, this X-ray machine is for corpses, it's not inspected for radiation output as often as it should be so be a good boy and make the pose count."

Sherlock's head dropped back onto the pillow she'd given him as soon as Lestrade left and Molly knew he'd love nothing better than to give her one of his famous sighs of impatience but the fact that he didn't scared her.

"M – Molly. I have to get – out of here. You can't be implicated – in this – if you haven't touched me yet. Tell them – th-that – you went to get some – tools and – and – I was gone when you got back. It was never – my intention to get you – into trouble. Where are m-my clothes? Molly, please."

He said please. That was never good.

"You know what, Sherlock? No. There I said it," Molly snapped the X-ray into a light box rather loudly for affect. "You might be smarter than me in most things, but I'm a doctor, not a mouse. Did you know that? I didn't spend all my schooling cutting up corpses and dissecting frogs. And you = have a collapsed lung," she informed him, tracing her distinctly unpolished finger over a sad image of Sherlock's left lung.

"C –clothes, Molly. Now," Sherlock demanded.

There was fear in Sherlock's eyes that no one but John Watson had seen a very long time ago in a moor not so very so far away.

"If you try to leave now, you're going to die for real. We have to give this up. I'm calling a surgeon. This is bad, Sherlock. You can get treated and then with your stupid brilliant mind you can escape later."

"I – I didn't do any – of those things they said. Don't tell John; I just wanted one person to – to know. I can trust you, M – Molly Hooper. Now let me go." Sherlock gathered the sheet around his shivering body and forced himself up. His feet touched the floor and he balanced for a minute, quite convincingly. He needed no one. Then he slumped to the floor. His lip bled from where he'd bitten it to keep from crying out. Sherlock Holmes didn't cry.

Indecision raced through Molly's entire being as she knelt beside the curled up body on the floor. Sherlock had warned her that if anyone found out he lived, they would fall victim to a war that for once, he had no control of.

"Okay, I'll be right back," she promised the curled up figure on the floor.

He relied on the sound of her footsteps to stay conscious until he could no longer hear them and then he imagined them as hard as he could until his diminishing senses picked them back up. She was alone. She hadn't betrayed him. Her steps faltered a few times; so she was carrying a heavy burden and towing something behind her, he deduced.

A sterile sheet hit the floor none too gracefully. Various instruments and a laptop littered the sheet a second later. A masked face appeared inches from his.

"Sherlock, you have to straighten out. I need to drain and re-inflate your lung," Molly coached sternly through the cotton mask covering her mouth and nose.

Sherlock's eyes found the laptop open to a Googled page as he did further damage to his blue-tinged lip complying with her command.

"L – Lung inflation f-for dummies I ass-assume?" Sherlock gasped, the chords in his neck standing out against his pale features, sweat beading on his forehead.

"You're a git, you know that, right," Molly said fondly as she fumbled with an oxygen mask and placed it over her patient's face before readying a needle and tapping a vein in his arm.

Before Molly could insert the IV needle, a strong hand clasped hers.

"You can't – give me - anything for pain," Sherlock gasped, his watery eyes betraying his need. "Con-concussion, remember?"

Molly dropped the needle and jumped to her feet, her hand clasping her forehead.

"I could've killed you."

"You didn't," Sherlock assured her. "I doubt it would have worked – anyhow - I have a – history w-with that stuff. Not too = proud of it."

"Sherlock, I'm not good at this. What if I kill you?"

"- 'm d-dead anyway," Sherlock gasped, locking his blown pupils with hers before his back arched up off the floor and his shoulder blades and the back of his heels were the only parts of his body grounding him to the earth.

"No, you're not, damn it, Sherlock Holmes! I'm a doctor, not just a medical examiner!"

"Y= you're a = Trekkie?" Sherlock gasped, the mask over his face fogging and clearing with each pain filled syllable.

"Let's just say I had to research the history of Vulcan to understand you," Molly said, smiling under the cotton mask. She waited for him to tell her how un-funny she was but he silently studied the parts of her face that were showing instead, focusing on her eyes.

"You're n-nervous," Sherlock pointed out as Molly started an IV with normal saline.

And he got one of his _well duh_, eye rolls right back.

Sherlock hated the noises that escaped his lips as fingers probed the intercostals space between his broken ribs. He sucked the oxygen from the mask greedily trying not to cry out. He kept his hands clutched to the mask until Molly commanded him to keep his left arm down and out. "Okay, this is going to really hurt but it'll be over quick," Molly said not too convincingly as she raised the scalpel. "Ready?"

He wasn't.

His forehead wrinkled. His eyes scrunched shut. The scalpel cut into his chest. And it _was_ going to burn the heart right out of him. Moriarty's fantasy fulfilled. His heart thrummed, pulsating in his temples like a geyser whose only release was the new hole it was tapping in the top of his head.

"GAH! Make it st –stop!"

Fire replaced breath before his world went black.

XXXX

"_Bad idea, buddy boy. Of course Molly likes corpses anyway, that's why she was always vying for your attention. Now she can put you in a jar on her mantle and you'll be just as charming and warm as you were in life. In fact it gets better than that, I'll buy you a double honeymoon urn once I burn her too and you can both burn in hell. Boring. This was so boring. I could watch Coronation Street if I wanted a soap opera, 'oh, he didn't die after all; it was his evil twin or some other nonsense."_

_The back of Moriarty's head was missing, his voice coming maybe from the black gaping maw or the jagged pulpy marrow behind it. The sound was dimensional; it was inside Sherlock, burning hot as the torch clutched in his arch enemy's hands. _

_For an insane minute, Sherlock was validated; only an 'arch' enemy could pursue after death. Take that John Watson. People did have arch enemies. Well, special people anyway._

_John … he would never know the truth. That he really was the best friend Sherlock ever had; that he was the only one who could really make him laugh; that truth be told, the doctor was in fact one of the smartest people he'd ever met and that was saying something when your name was Sherlock Holmes. _

"_Sherlock! Come on! Don't do this to me! You have to fight!" Molly's voice pleaded and Sherlock could hear the tears hit the sheet beneath his body._

"_Yeah, come on Sherlock, I'll race you to her!" Moriarty taunted as he turned his back and started running into the abyss before them, his grotesque head contents spilling behind him, his torch, weapon of choice for heart burning held aloft like an Olympic torch._

"_You can't have her! You can't have any of them!" Sherlock screamed after his arch enemy. _

XXXX

The wheelchair in the corner was useless; there was no way Sherlock's newly re-inflated lung would withstand the ride to the parking lot and subsequent folding of his tall frame to get into Molly's Mini. Molly peaked from the partition window as she took another X-Ray of Sherlocks's chest. Sherlock moaned and willed his hands to obey not to claw at the spasm in his chest as his muscles reacted to the recent assault of re-inflation.

"It worked," Molly said into the speaker, allowing herself a minute before she'd stitch up the incision. _Thank God. _

Molly wished Sherlock would close his eyes, not that there was any possible way he could see her hands shaking as she concentrated on making tiny, proper stitches. After all, none of her other patients had ever complained, scars were the least of their problems.

Sherlock's hyper-vigilant senses heard every knot tied with each stitch, the cold Betadine solution Molly sloshed liberally down his side and the hesitation on his left side with each breath he pulled.

Too noisy.

He tried to go to his mind palace but it was closed for renovations, yellow crime scene tape with razor wire barring the entrance.

Too noisy.

Molly tried to wipe the sweat of concentration from her brow uselessly with the back of her hand. Vinyl gloves squeaked on her brow before scraping across her tied back hair.

Too noisy!

He squinted and tried to breathe, his broken ribs floating in place but disconnected, sloshing around in him mingling with the loud tattoo that beat like a drum with each heartbeat into his ears. A single tear betrayed him as it overflowed his eye socket and spilled down his temple making him shiver before it splashed onto the sheet beneath him.

"Done," Molly soothed.

But she wasn't.

Tape ripped off in measured amounts, gauze unwound from its roll, a bandage application ignited every sense in his torso which sent messages like a frenzied switchboard operator through every nerve in his body.

Too loud.

"M-Molly, 'm gonna be…" Sherlock slurred as he ripped the mask from his face and rolled to his side with a silent spasm of agony.

Molly pressed a basin against Sherlock's chin, her hand gentled on his back in circles. A few more wretches and he rolled back onto his back with nothing but a moan left in him. Even in Molly's haste, she breathed on the stethoscope to warm it, startled at his ever heightened sense of touch. Sherlock Holmes had seemed impenetrable even by the sword but in one of life's greatest ironies, the pen was mightier. What must it be like to be him? To have every thought and sense refuse you downtime until you had to drown it out with music that you had to physically be a part of, to concentrate on with every fiber of your being just to drown one tenth of it so you can think?

Molly hadn't realized she'd been holding her breath but the respite it had given Sherlock's ears was more than welcome. So too was the return of her breath after she finished listening to his.

"It's still good," Molly said, shaky relief evident in her voice.

Sherlock lay panting after expelling the water Molly had allowed him to rinse his mouth with before fixing the oxygen mask back into place.

There were no windows in Molly's dungeon to tell the time, no clock on the wall, the clients who were usually here were at their very last appointment, no pressing schedules any longer. But it was time to go.

"Molly I have – to get out of here," Sherlock told her, carefully controlling the few slurred syllables he could manage.

"You're not going to make it, Sherlock," Molly told him.

"I'm dying then?" Sherlock asked, sounding infuriatingly indifferent.

"No, you're not dying," Molly scolded. "I meant you're not going to make it out of here on your own."

"No one - can know I'm alive," Sherlock gasped, sucking one more breath of oxygen from the mask before trying to discard it again.

"Then no one will," Molly vowed. "I told you I'd help you."

XXXX

Sherlock made an effort to breathe in through his nose and out through his mouth against the pain as Molly helped him onto a gurney and zippered him into a black plastic bag which was covered in tacky velvet. She tucked his IV under his arm and left an inch gap near his head. She hid the portable oxygen next to his feet. She pushed the gurney up the slight incline to the morgue parking area unnoticed by anyone. She pushed the button and the glass doors opened letting in a whoosh of bitterly cold air. And this is where her plans ended.

"Okay, we're outside," Molly said without need, for the flaps of the black plastic were whipping about in the wind. "I don't know why we couldn't have called a cab. I could have disguised you."

"They'd know," came the weak but resolved voice from within. "Look around, Molly. Do you see an unattended work van, a hearse, anything with the engine running?"

"No, nothing. Sherlock we can't just…" Molly trailed off as Sherlock shushed her into silence.

"Molly … am – ambulance over – over there," Sherlock whispered and Molly jerkily slapped the corpse's hands down as he accidentally gestured beneath the body bag

"Stop moving!"

…Wheels! Why didn't anyone ever do anything about that infernal racket? The shocks and struts of the parked van not five feet in front of them grated on Sherlock's nerves as it rocked back and forth like it was going over a gravel road with twenty years of neglected potholes.

"Van's – a rockin', Molly. Go – uh, knockin'." Sherlock thought he was rather clever to have retrieved the rhyme from the rubble in his brain from the bumper sticker on a van used in a murder on one of his cases.

"What?' But Molly did as she was told. There really was no choice and he'd never steered her wrong before. But then again he was out of his mind with concussion and low blood pressure.

The noise of the ambulance doors creaking open scraped across Sherlock's

shattered brain. The subsequent scream of a woman made him retch but he stifled his will to curl into a ball to escape it.

"What the bloody hell are you doing!" the nurse screamed as she jumped up from her straddled position over an orderly who drew his pants up nearly to his chest in his haste for cover. But Molly had already captured the Kodak moment on her mobile and pressed send to her email.

"Right then, if you both value your…" She glanced at their ring fingers in disgust. "Marriages and your jobs, you'll get lost right now and say nothing or those pics will be on every billboard from here to Timbuktu. You saw nothing, you got me?"

The nurse nodded, red blotches replacing pale cheeks as she hiked her white skirt back down and pulled up her nylons.

"It wasn't love," Molly mocked. "She never took her duty shoes off. Good deduction, eh?" she whispered behind her.

The nurse and orderly vacated the ambulance. "And don't look back," Molly called after them.

Molly fumbled with the gurney and with an, "OOF!" Sherlock rolled into the ambulance, hitting the far wall.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Molly shouted as she slammed the ambulance doors.

"No – you were bril – brilliant," Sherlock said as she released him from his velvet tomb. His eyes closed in relief as she fitted the oxygen back onto his face.

"Where were you going to go? Where should I take you?"

And for once in his life, Sherlock Holmes didn't have all the answers. In fact, he didn't even have one. None of this was supposed to happen. He swallowed the panic but it only made his legs feel numb. He wished Molly would stop taking his pulse; he could assure her verbally that his heart was beating because it was in his throat, the password for his mind palace flashing _locked _over and over again as the concussion won out and he knew no more.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N It looks like this story will be ten chapters in length, as I revise my complete copy. Written only for fun and no copyright infringement is intended. What a gift Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The BBC and the Sherlock actors have given us. Action sequences will be begin in this tale in about chapter four. Off we go.

XXXXCHAPTER TWO

A sense of fleeting freedom filled Molly as the stolen ambulance blew through red lights, other cars bowing to her every whim. London was so much bigger when you were trying to get away. Where the hell were those quaint country roads that filled the front covers of every London tourist magazine?

As the traffic thinned, so did Molly's stamina. Every thought as to where to take a very injured Sherlock Holmes was followed by a barrage of deductive reasoning she never thought herself capable of until there was only one possibility left, even if the voice in her head that sounded very much like Sherlock's warred against it. She'd never taken Mycroft Holme's bribes to report on Sherlock but she had taken his phone number and she dialed as she drove on, every car behind or in front of them a possible threat.

After what seemed an age Molly killed the sirens and lights and pulled over on a deserted road nearly falling out of the driver's side door in her haste to reach the back doors. Mycroft had told her to drive until she was overtaken and given a signal but her need to check on Sherlock outweighed the order. What good would a corpse be to Mycroft if and when he showed up?

"Sherlock?" Molly said in a small voice.

Sherlock's whitewashed face was turned to the side, his lips blue-tinged again. The mask lay to the side of his head. Molly gingerly reached for the barely there pulse, her other hand on his chest which stilled under her touch. His eyes locked onto hers and a sigh of a last breath that sounded annoyingly content stilled his chest as if he hadn't wanted to die alone.

"Oh no you don't! Do you think I'm going to let you leave me stuck explaining all this to your brother?" Molly ripped open the defibrillator package that hung above the gurney with her teeth and applied the pads to Sherlock's chest. When the reading said shock, she did. Sherlock's body arched up off the table but fell defiantly limp.

Molly hated these new, easy to use defibrillator pads; it would have been much more satisfying to send the pulsing jolt into his obstinate form with those paddles like in the old days; they gave the rescuer something to do, something to concentrate on, they could feel the momentum, like they were actually doing something. The polite instruction to shock again was too calm but she did it anyway. Sherlock's body convulsed with artificial life for a second before he flatlined again. Molly reached for the epinephrine needle. All she saw in her mind was a textbook from way back when she had a lot more confidence and her patient was a resuscitation doll. She found her mark beneath the broken ribs and pressed the plunger.

Sherlock's body reacted with total animation. His eyes flew open and darted back and forth seeing horrors hidden from all but him, hearing noises only his ears picked up. Screeching tires beside the ambulance increased the agitation. The ambulance doors jerked open revealing two black-suited men in sunglasses and a hearse parked inches from their bumper. Two more men stood on either side of the ambulance with guns drawn as they looked in every direction as if expecting attack at any moment.

"Stand aside," one of the men ordered but Molly gripped Sherlock even tighter.

"Mr. Holmes sent us," one of them said, voice filled with long-suffering. "Agent Fields. I need to have a look at him."

The taller of the two men who'd identified himself as Fields shoved into her space. Sherlock didn't seem to notice the changing of the guard and stupid as it was at a time like this, Molly couldn't help feeling utter isolation. Her job was on the line, maybe her very life, definitely her heart.

Fields ripped the I.E.D. off of Sherlock's chest. "What did you give him?" he demanded as his already gloved hands traced the pin prick of blood on Sherlock's chest.

"Epinephrine," Molly told the man as Sherlock continued to bat away imaginary enemies. "He flat-lined, he wasn't responding to shock."

"Mr. Holmes. Mr. Holmes! You need to be still and calm," Fields said, flashing a penlight into the younger Holmes' brother's eyes and getting no response other than more quaking about Moriarty and a hard shove into his chest. Before Molly could react, Fields jerked Sherlock's arm out to his side, stood on it with his hard soled shoe while fishing in his pocket for a syringe which he deftly shot into the vein of Sherlock's exposed inner arm. He then held Sherlock's arm in more of wresting move than to staunch the blood. In seconds Sherlock's body ceased all movement, his eyes jerked back and forth a few times before squinting shut and then the creases in his brows and eyelids smoothed.

"What the hell are you doing?" Molly yelled as the man stood up, dropped Sherlock's arm like a sack and reached for the intubation kit.

"If your goal is to keep him breathing you'll stay out of my way," Fields said sounding like he really didn't care one way or the other. "The sedation we've had to give him is sufficient enough to depress a pachyderm's breathing."

Molly grabbed Sherlock's wrist. The faint pulse under her shaking fingers was very carefully economized as if every beat of his heart might be his last. She mechanically tilted Sherlock's head back as Fields inserted the tube into his esophagus.

"Sorry about this," she whispered hoping for the first time that he couldn't hear her." Sherlock told her he might be dying today. He wasn't lying.

A phone rang, muffled by a tweed pocket.

"Answer it and put it to my ear," Fields demanded of his unwilling assistant. She held the phone, trying to listen but it was impossible past the beeping from the equipment that snaked over Sherlock's too still form.

"Yes, sir. I understand, sir," Fields intoned in a practiced pitch as he deftly withdrew another small needle from his pocket and injected it into Sherlock's IV.

"What did you give him?" Molly demanded, dropping the phone and pinching off the IV with her fingers as Fields taped down the tubes.

"Something more to keep him quiet. If anyone's watching, how do you fancy we explain the corpse trying to fight this Moriarty character let alone Captain Hook?" Fields sneered at some inside joke with the other agent as another black velvet cloth was flung over Sherlock. "Besides, if he wakes, and if what my boss tells me is true, he'll pull his tubes." Fields none too gently turned the inside of Sherlock's arm to face Molly. Track marks of an unknown age showed up and down the slender arm.

"I'm sorry, Sherlock," Molly whispered, her fingers allowing the liquid to disappear into the stream of saline.

In minutes Sherlock was loaded into the hearse. Molly would have crammed herself into the back if she'd been allowed but Fields towered over her holding open the passenger side door as the other agents sped away in the ambulance.

"Change into this," Fields ordered Molly, handing her an overly large black skirt, blouse and blazer with a funeral home crest with a hat that covered her hair.

Molly looked off into the field bewildered.

"No, in there, while we drive. I assure you, I won't look," Fields said with an unmistakable eye roll even behind those dark glasses.

But that blunt comment didn't hurt nearly as much as it would have from the man lying in the back of her new macabre changing room.

XXXX

"NO!" Sherlock tried to scream past his splintered throat.

Two firm and very definitely masculine hands pinned him down.

_So not Molly then…_

Sherlock opened his eyes, squinting against fluorescents but they weren't there.

_Not a hospital_…

He sniffed at the air but all he could detect was forced oxygen muting the senses he relied on. The infernal beeping and the rushing in his ears stole his keen sense of hearing. He swallowed panic trying to use his tactile senses. His fingers found cotton; Egypt's finest, probably white from the undisturbed thread that a dye process would have frayed.

The hands on his shoulders gentled just as Sherlock related the mechanical hissing with his own breathing rhythm. And suddenly that pattern didn't match as he tried to override it. No one told him what to do, when to breathe. Because those who can tell you _when_ to breathe can tell you to stop as easily.

Right. This had to stop. He flexed his right hand: that seemed to work; left too. He silently counted to two or three, whatever he could manage and shook off the hands that held him in place, grabbing for the tube in his mouth.

Mistake.

"He's choking!" a voice called from somewhere.

"He's not going to choke," a way too calm voice answered the scared one.

"Mr. Holmes, you need to be calm. I will extract the tube, do you understand me?"

He had no choice but to nod.

"I'm going to pull the tube. You need to keep breathing. Concentrate on breathing. Do you understand? If you don't co-operate, we will sedate and re-intubate."

A hand on his left that was more or less there to hold him down judging by its pressure still found its way into his hand. He didn't want to take it. He didn't need it. It was abhorrent. He's spent his whole life rejecting it.

But he took it. And he squeezed it. Tried to give the person attached to it as much pain as he endured as his head was forced back and his bottom jaw was held tightly. And all he could do was breathe against it all as the tube gagged him and scratched its way out of his throat.

Someone's hand snaked over his clammy forehead. "You're doing well, just keep on breathing. Almost done." But it wasn't the voice of the torturer.

_Stop it!_

The hand that held his shook a little in what felt like empathy. "It's going to be all over in a minute." The voice was unnatural at this and so quiet no one else within a ten centimeter radius would hear it. Too close.

_Stop it! _

"All done," the relieved voice told him as a warm cloth dabbed his face, the hands gone. They weren't needed; exhaustion prevented any struggle he'd planned. And … he hadn't needed them anyway. For a second he searched for them but found only darkness which seemed unfair somehow. He'd kept up his end of the bargain. As far as he knew, he'd kept breathing…

XXXX

"His fever's broken, sir," someone said quietly as if standing beside a grave.

"Thank you, you may go now. And keep in mind, this is code seventeen eleven."

"Yes sir."

Mycroft.

He was at Mycroft's house, mansion, castle, museum; whatever it was.

Damn it!

The car outside the window gratified his muted senses by backfiring as it backed down the long, cobbled drive. Sherlock's body jerked involuntarily at the sound.

"You can come out now," the always irritated Mycroft Holmes called out to a distant corner.

Sherlock heard the bookshelf swing out to emit Molly Hooper. It could only be her.

She'd betrayed him…

She promised…

She killed him.

She killed John.

She killed Mrs. Hudson.

She killed Lestrade.

She killed … herself.

"Is he going to be okay?" Molly asked timidly, a sob narrowly escaping her.

"Was he ever?" Mycroft sniped but at the same time the hands that had restrained him pulled a blanket up to his chin and tucked it around his shoulders before the weight that he carried fell into a chair that scraped the expensive hardwood beside the bed.

Usually someone defended him against Mycroft's cruel analogies. Often it was Mrs. Hudson. But by now she was dead. There would be no more warnings to Mycroft that he should look after his little brother, that Sherlock could be more respectful of his big brother. So it confused Sherlock when the fingers that took his pulse lingered on his wrist long after a satisfactory count could be conducted.

"His pulse is stronger," Mycroft confirmed to the still corner-bound Molly.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Holmes. After I stole the ambulance I panicked. I couldn't drive and keep an eye on his vitals at the same time. I didn't know what else to do. He was supposed to be fine and escape from the morgue once the frenzy had settled down but something went wrong."

"Well, it's better you called me than taking him to Dr. Watson like you were going to do. You and Watson would be dead by now if you'd done that."

_John was alive!_

"You mean that?" Molly said, her voice brightening.

"I didn't mean that as a compliment Ms. Hooper, you've compromised everything," Mycroft said affectively popping the balloon of hope that had inflated in Molly's mind.

Now Sherlock wished Mrs. Hudson was here. Because if she was, Mycroft would be told off in good shape and in any second he'd be apologizing to Molly Hooper.

But Mrs. Hudson wasn't here. She was dead.

"Leave – ouch – leave her – a- alone Mycroft," Sherlock whispered past his splintered throat.

The chair to his left fell over as the body in it jumped to his feet. Was that a smile that ran for the hills on Mycroft's face as soon as Sherlock's vision started to clear?

"See? I told you, he's fine," Mycroft said but the fingers that took Sherlock's pulse again shook and the expensive watch that ticked off the beats snapped shut as Mycroft realized that the machine beside the bed was doing that job and announcing proof of life in bold, red. LED. And all without the inconvenient touching.

Molly let out a sob and forgot whatever invisible force had held her in the corner. She hugged Mycroft who in turn plopped himself back into his chair as if nothing had ever rattled him. Mycroft turned the volume of the heart monitor down making it possible for Sherlock to hear him swipe his hand through his receding hairline. Concern?

"Sherlock, you lived," Molly sighed as she leaned in for a gentle one-sided hug that was nothing new.

"Ow! Ow! Molly Geroff me!" came the stifled cry from underneath the new oxygen mask.

"Oh, oh, of course, I'm sorry, Sherlock," Molly stiffened, still needing very much to be hugged.

Sherlock's brain didn't comprehend Molly's needs at the best of times but now he was too busy doing math that was beyond even him. What day was it? What happened? But he didn't have to ask what that feeling in his head was. It was very familiar.

"Why, Mycroft?" Sherlock cried, holding up his right arm and following the needle in the crook of his elbow to the saline and the much smaller bag above it.

"You needed it, Sherlock. The doctor said so," Mycroft said defensively, walking away to look out the window to avoid the terrified, pain filled orbs that bore into him with such loathing.

And though Mycroft Holmes hadn't defended her, hadn't absolved her of dismissing his brother's wishes and blowing everything as he'd accused her of, she defended him.

"Um, Sherlock … You probably don't remember any of this but…"

And Sherlock gave her his best withering look like, _I'm Sherlock Holmes, I forget nothing, I know everything._

"By the time I got us out of London you were doing poorly. You died."

_Fascinating_.

Despite his best attempts, Sherlock found his gaze locked onto Molly Hooper. This was the most interesting she'd ever been. Pity he couldn't remember being dead. He imagined it would be quite peaceful. But then he did remember. He remembered Moriarty ripping everything he … sort of … liked … or … cared about, away. Death hadn't been his friend like he thought it would be. And he'd always wondered if that old wives' tale about dying in your dreams was true; one point to old wives then.

"It was my fault," Molly admitted and Sherlock found ironic joy in the returning of his senses as he heard her sensible shoes squeaking on the hardwood. Of course they would, it had been raining when he died.

"I had to give you epinephrine, a shot right into your heart. I hit you with the paddles too, twice before you responded. When you came to, you were hyper, you wouldn't pass out like a normal person; you wouldn't give up. You were just in so much pain. You kept screaming and trying to fight with someone that wasn't there and I couldn't…"

"H-He _was_ there, I mean n-not Captain H … but Mor…" Sherlock said without much conviction, letting Molly know he still had a ways to go with the concussion.

Molly and Mycroft shared sympathetic glances but Mycroft's was followed with a slight eye roll.

Images flashed in Sherlock's fragmented memory, mists of blood mixing with the London fog on top of that roof as Moriarty pulled the trigger, almost identical in sound to the backfiring car that had invited him over the edge. But Sherlock's eyes had been open as he lay on the pavement below, red blood turned to pink tears mixing with the rain. One by one from the stairwell windows to the hit man who'd looked down from the offices, they revisited him.

"Th-they're n-not safe, Mycroft…" Sherlock stuttered as his teeth chattered from pain and confusion. "I need to – um…"

"Sleep, Sherlock. You need to sleep. You're incapable of doing anything else right now," Mycroft said bossily.


	3. Chapter 3

Sherlock's eyes roved under the pale lids framed by dark lashes that almost disappeared with deep frowns. His hands grasped at the sheets, sometimes letting go to shove something aside like an old fashioned type writer carriage. His closed eyes fixated on something above him.

"Take it away. Now. Please." The eyes still didn't open but there was no denying what the pale figure in the bed meant.

Molly stared at the bag slowly dripping into its unwilling recipient's arm. Mycroft shot her a warning look.

When no one moved, Sherlock opened his eyes, grasped the bedrails and tried to sit up.

"Gah!" he gasped, hunched over but still trying to pry his arm away from his ribs where instinct had sped them. "I told you, M-Molly, I can't have … T-trusted you…"

Molly eased Sherlock back down. He barely breathed, afraid to expand his chest and feed the fire within his lungs. His eyes implored her for answers.

"Sherlock, take slow, shallow breaths," Molly coaxed but Mycroft had other ideas as he reached for the pump on the small bag and sped up the drips.

"Sleep now, Sherlock, okay? Just sleep." Mycroft's face flashed with momentary regret as he addressed Molly next. "You know how some children say they're going to hold their breath until they get what they want? He could actually do it, blue lips and all; I'm convinced all of mummy's grey hairs were a result of that." Mycroft's hand brushed over his receding hair line ironically as he looked to Molly as if that explained everything.

Sherlock counted the quickened drops, his eyes drooping in confusion and betrayal. Molly reached out to take his hand but he recoiled as if seeing her for the first time, as if all of his deductions about her had been wrong. The warmth lingered on his palm that she'd touched but he brushed it away.

"G-get out."

XXXX

Molly grabbed her coat and stumbled as though blind into the hall.

"Ms. Hooper, wait," Mycroft called, but it wasn't a request, it was an order. "I regret to inform you that you can't go home. I've sent an agent disguised as you to your flat to throw off Moriarty's network; even now she'd ordering from your favourite Chinese takeaway; can't be too careful you know."

"What!" The exhausted Medical Examiner looked close to nervous breakdown. "I can't stay here. I have a life … well … I have work and – um, he's – your brother, I told him I'd help him and all I've gotten him is a set back in his addiction and…"

"A chance to get his life back," Mycroft said softly. "He trusts you, Ms. Hooper."

"He trust_ed_ me you mean," Molly said bitterly.

"Trusts," Mycroft insisted. "Telling you to leave isn't the first time he's been indecent to you and yet you're always there for him. He needs his venom right now; it's all he's got. Now if Sherlock were silent toward you then that would be worrisome."

Molly's hand fell to her side as if her purse were obscenely heavy. It was true. When Sherlock Holmes dismissed someone, that person could watch their file being deleted behind, cold steel blue eyes. So it was true then, you can only hurt the ones you loved, and Sherlock hurt people, god help him or damn him but on the other hand, he would lay down his life for them and Molly knew her file, probably on some floppy disc in a dusty cabinet in Sherlock's mind, was still there. She allowed herself to be led back into the vast mansion.

XXXX

Mycroft stiffly apologized to Molly for having released his staff; there would be no one to turn down her bed tonight. Molly had never had anyone turn down her bed, she wouldn't miss it.

The mansion was huge but she was directed to a room not so very far down the hall from where Sherlock recovered. Molly peeked around the corner to watch Mycroft make his way back to Sherlock's room. In a few moments Mycroft left again, catching Molly peeking around the corner still.

"He's fine," Mycroft said as he descended the stairs.

Molly would have to take Mycroft's word for it. There was no way she could go back into that room, look into those blue eyes again, filled with so much pain, so much betrayal. She'd promised him. He'd confided his darkest, most shameful things, told her about the crutch he needed so badly but that he had finally learned to live without and she'd poisoned him with his own confession.

The en-suite's large tub invited her tired body to soak. As her filthy clothing dropped to the floor she realized she'd never be able to wear them again. A small _oh _formed her lips. Sherlock's blood was still encrusted under her fingernails. As the tub nearly overflowed with hot water she scrubbed with a nail brush. She'd worn gloves for the surgery but before and after that … when she'd held him, when she brushed his hair off his brow in his fevered nightmares, she hadn't thought. And apparently neither had he, for he'd forgotten it all.

But that was good. It hadn't been real. Sherlock never really needed her.

XXXX

_He needed her_. He didn't understand why she left. Well, he'd told her to go but he didn't mean … for her to leave, just to not be _here – now. _One minute he wanted to thank her for the warmth flowing into his arm, into his body, dulling his senses that were always too alert, too tight, too scary, the next minute he hated her with every fiber of his being.

Sherlock raised his hand, smiling insanely at his fingers as five became fifty. Why did he raise his hand again? Oh yeah!

It was hard to grasp something so small and fine as a needle with sausage fingers, 'cause really, that was one of the side effects of his drug. Fingers, annoying, stubby little uncoordinated bastards. And the mask? He didn't need it anymore either, couldn't see the needle over it. Besides, he was breathing fine, hadn't felt this good in … not long enough for this time not to screw him over.

XXXX

The kettle whistled startling Mycroft out of a nap he hadn't authorized. The teapot lid grated in his shaking hands as he poured the steaming water over the loose leaf Earl Grey. The aroma brought him around a bit and he reached over his head to get a tin down before arranging assorted biscuits in a circular pattern on one of his mother's china plates. Everything rattled up the stairs on a sterling tray and Mycroft made a mental note to increase his staff's salary.

Mycroft knocked on Molly's door. No one answered. He cursed himself that he hadn't retained the specially trained agent who'd seen to his brother's further medical needs. It wasn't like him to second guess himself. There was perimeter security to stave off curiousity; they were on a need to know basis, and right now they knew that Sherlock was dead and would be buried at the family chapel sometime tomorrow. No, there was no need to have any more people in the house than were already here. The fewer people who knew, the better.

Still, if someone got past the security and had done something to Ms. Hooper … No, that was stupid. He was being stupid. He was tired. That was it. He knocked again. Really, she wasn't such an annoying person, not stupid, not really. And she _had_ saved his brother.

"Ms. Hooper?" Mycroft called after knocking rather robustly.

And still no one came to the door.

After all it was _his_ house … Mycroft put the tray down on the plush hallway carpeting and turned the handle of the oak door.

"Ms. Hooper, forgive me the intrusion but I realized you hadn't eaten all day and…" With this, Mycroft's own stomach seized the opportunity to remind him that he hadn't eaten either.

The bed hadn't been touched. The curtains were drawn and water ran from under the bathroom door…

XXXX

Sherlock watched the red liquid pulse from his elbow as he discarded the needle, the drops of crimson thunking onto the floor in time with the raindrops on the windowsill. The false strength, his best friend in the darkest hours of his life allowed him to stand without pain. Why had they kept him in bed? He hadn't splattered all over the ground or anything. It was just an open office window at St. Barts that he'd bounced off of in the wind that kept him from reacting in perfect time to use his plan to slow down properly. But he'd slowed down some, 'cause here he was, just fine. Was Mycroft ever going to be pissed when he saw the mess on the floor! This made Sherlock smile.

But he had something to do. What was it?

And then Molly screamed.

Oh yeah!

Sherlock stumbled across the room. He considered trying to get the stupid mask – the one he didn't need at all and put it on, just because you know, the air up here on the third floor was dense after all. But he had to help Molly.

Because Molly was screaming.

Mycroft's house was annoyingly big, miles and miles and miles before he could get to Molly but by then she'd be dead.

_Hear her screaming, Sherlock? But you can't tell if it's real or not because you have your little friend on board with you now. I can't believe you did that, so boring, so college, but then that's when it all happened wasn't it? Mum and Dad got killed and big brother tried to mould you into the perfect little agent. Tried to tell you it wasn't your fault. But it was your fault and so is Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, John … tell me, I did get those names right? You know, the letters from the edge? _

"_Y-you're not real. You're the one who-who's not r-real." _

"_Now you're stuttering like that fool Watson. He stuttered right to the end. But here's something that'll make you feel better. He believed you in the end, Sherlock. He believed that you were nothing but a fraud, a circus act, just before I broke your crystal ball over his head and when Mrs. Hudson died, she hated you, she believed you murdered that woman and framed her husband; yes, the two of them could have seen their twilight together in happiness if not for you, and all for the want of a cheap flat in London because you were too much of a loser to get a real job." _

Sherlock slid down the wall just outside the bedroom door as Molly screamed again and he knew she died knowing he was a fraud.

XXXX

At first Mycroft was furious, water saturated the Turkish carpets which hydroplaned over the hardwood, then he saw the drooped face, nearly touching the water that spilled over the side of the massive tub. Her closed eyes were puffy. His brother had hurt her. What must _that_ be like?

Mycroft averted his eyes and gingerly reached out to turn off the taps but as he did so the crouching tiger in the tub awakened and attacked.

"Ms. Hooper! Ms. Hooper!" Mycroft gurgled as Molly screamed like a girl and pummeled him at the same time, his already wrinkled Gucci getting a much needed bath with him."

Molly was just about to whack Mycroft with a grab handle she'd managed to tear from its tile when her eyes widened in shock at something over her attacker's shoulders.

"Leave. Her. Alone. Moriarty."

And Mycroft went down not knowing what hit him.

And then what him slumped to the floor beside his brother, his liquid assailant dripping all over the hardwood back in his room.

XXXX

It was morning. Three wet, robed figures found themselves on a dry piece of carpet in the hallway, one with an icepack on his temple looking irate sipping cold tea, one looking apologetic and sheepish and slightly waspish drinking cold tea and eating damp biscuits and one with both hands and legs tied to the banister railings whose eyes had just opened.

"Thank you for not … hooking _that _back up," Sherlock bit out past the pain that was evident in his words and trembling body.

The little bag lay discarded beside them, the saline re-attached and dripping freely into Sherlock's left arm while his right arm was bandaged up firmly.

"What are we doing – in the hallway? Mycroft, Molly needs - to sleep." Sherlock's puzzled expression left him looking all of fifteen.

Mycroft didn't roll his eyes often. He had people for that. But this was an exception. A time for a lot of exceptions whether Sherlock liked them or not.

Sherlock opened his mouth to ask about the restraints but then he didn't have to. A flash in the back of his brain laughed at him in Moriarty's voice. The next several hours were spent between splendid lucidity where he could hear the bees nesting in a rotting bit of eaves just outside the attic vent above him and screaming against his splintered ribcage as Mrs. Hudson, John, Lestrade, and Molly all burned before him. And for once something that frightened him even more happened. Mycroft burned. In all of his nightmares, Mycroft had never burned. Mycroft was Mycroft. They didn't get along but Mycroft always saved him when he couldn't save himself. Because Mum had begged him to look after Sherlock and Mycroft never broke the rules, Mycroft _was _the rules, he _made _the rules.

And speaking of rules. Nobody killed his brother. Ever. Toy with him, yes. Hurt him, yes, it was all part of the job. But kill him. No. Just no. Moriarty's usefulness had come to an end. Sherlock swore in his delirium that Moriarty had eaten a bullet faster than Molly Hooper had just eaten her third biscuit to which an irritated Molly told him off.

Sherlock's lips curled into a smile and for once he figured out why men lie. No, the huge robe from the guestroom did not make her look fat, not that she asked but he told her so anyway.

"You should eat another b-biscuit," he rasped past another wave of intense pain that showed on her face more than it did on his own.

"Apology accepted, Sherlock, now try to rest. Please?"

Sherlock's hand twitched and Molly reached for it instinctively. She instantly regretted it when he didn't take it. He drew a quick breath and with purpose instead of involuntary convulsing reached out and put his hand on hers. He didn't draw it away when her fingers interlaced with his.

XXXX

Mycroft swallowed a lump in his throat and feigned a yawn to mask his exhaustion. Trust. It was the first time Sherlock had shown it outright in years. Didn't matter if it wasn't to him. It happened. It was a start. After all, what had happened when Sherlock was in college was his fault, if the kid never trusted him again, well, that was to be expected.

XXXX

Mycroft Holmes knew that misery loved company better than anyone else in Britain and there was no shortage of it to go around. Sure, he'd sent a large bouquet of flowers to Watson's bedside as he recuperated from his own concussion, sent money to Mrs. Hudson in lieu of Sherlock's rent; it would be hard to rent an apartment with gunshot holes in the walls and yellow tape around it that would be there for some time as Sherlock's possessions were all gone through with a fine tooth comb; but no one could mend that abyss of wonder, that betrayal of trust … that neither of them would ever believe anyway but were told they were just being stupid and sentimental in their support of the late Sherlock Holmes, and maybe, just maybe, a little too prideful to admit that they'd been taken in.

A/N This story is complete and will be published as I edit. Thank you so much for the reviews and follows, I appreciate them. We still haven't seen season three of Sherlock in Canada; we get it on Feb. 13th. Can't wait.


	4. Chapter 4

The cold rain soothed the post concussion pain in John Watson's temples as he closed the door to 221 B Baker Street. A small duffle was supported by the cane he'd grabbed at the last minute before he'd turned off the lights. Sherlock would be appalled. Watson's injuries were in his head, literally and figuratively, and yes, Sherlock would be amused as he pointed out that little gem. Except Sherlock was dead. There would be no pointers as to how to avoid getting hit by a cyclist of all things, no cat-like reflex demonstrations of how to jump out of the way should the situation ever come up again. The cane tapped louder and louder. But no one told him to stop the infernal noise and when John found himself in front of St. Bart's, he knew no one ever would.

For a long time, John stood staring at the roof, hoping for something he couldn't explain; a ghost even; Sherlock saying a proper goodbye, explaining why in the hell things had to end this way, but there was nothing but sky and roof. The bustling crowds on the sidewalks told him with their shoving body language that he wasn't welcome, just loitering about; he should join the dance of everyday life, going to work, hurry home, that sort of thing, but where home was anymore, he didn't know. When he found the courage to look into the eyes of the passersby, Molly popped into view up the block, no doubt on her way to face a disciplinary hearing for having left work without permission and for her unorthodox method of filing her most recent autopsy report. It was all formality of course; Mycroft had softened the edges of any real enquiries.

Unable to hurry to greet her, John let Molly pass from view, swallowed by the throngs of patients and doctors and business people. He'd wanted to say hello to her but the fact that she hadn't attended Sherlock's memorial would have been an awkward topic that he felt sure he couldn't avoid accosting her with and she didn't deserve that; he knew that. He had no clue as to why he'd even attempted to have a gathering for such a man as Sherlock Holmes in the first place. Only Mrs. Hudson, the guy from the restaurant and a few of the homeless network sat around uneaten trays of food before scurrying away awkwardly. How appropriate, John thought, Sherlock never ate when he was on a case and it seemed, neither did he, for he was on a case make no mistake; he hadn't been fooled; Sherlock Holmes had been his friend; it was real.

John wanted to scream at people who dared walk on the spot where his friend's body had lain, so broken. It wasn't right; those cold stone slabs of sidewalk should be memorialized. Sherlock Holmes had done a service to his community and now he was forgotten after having been swept under the rug as a fraud, a criminal, a murderer and even his own brother hadn't come to his defense and nor had Lestrade. That wasn't so strange, Lestrade never understood why Sherlock had never bothered to learn his name, they'd worked together for five years but somehow Sherlock always thought people knew the pecking order; there was him, and then there were those he allowed near him each day, the ones who didn't have to turn their backs because they clouded his thinking … the ones he considered friends in some strange way inside that curled-up annoying head of his. The ones he would do anything for. The ones he would die for…

A crumpled bit of yellowed paper stuck out from a crumbling foundation stone. John didn't fight the impulse to reach out for it. His reward was a wad of chewing gum strung between his fingers as he tried to unfold the paper. Giving up in disgust and trying to disentangle the chewing gum from his fingers which stuck to his cane when he tried to balance, he smelled strong spearmint. John was transported back a week in time by the smell.

"You don't chew gum," he grouched at his flat mate. "And for the love of God, Sherlock, we have bins; put your wrappers in the bin!"

He remembered thinking that the spearmint was better than the nicotine lozenges Sherlock sometimes used with the patches in the hopes it would stave off his nicotine craving. In a dying eureka moment, Watson shook off his revulsion at the chewed gum and tore open the folds. It was a page of the bible that someone had used to spit their gum into. Sherlock didn't believe in God. It wasn't some message from Sherlock proclaiming that he was alive and he would have gotten away with it too if it hadn't been for those meddling old war vets or something like that. Damn him!

Not wanting to litter in front of the bustling hospital area, Watson folded the paper up, gum inside and reluctantly put it in his pocket. He squinted up to the rooftop.

_Keep your eyes on me, _Sherlock had pleaded. He'd sounded so small, so scared.

"I begged you not to, Sherlock," John told the empty roof having moved to the same vantage point he'd had on the worst day of his life. "But then I begged you not to be dead too and look what that's got me. And I don't believe you. You can research. Sure. Anyone can research, people do it all the time, steal identities, invade privacy, all that, but you didn't steal anything. You didn't even steal my trust because I don't give that lightly and you know it. You know that…"

John's mobile rang. It was Mrs. Hudson. Again. And again. And again. She was worried about him. Sure she was, decorated war vet with little money or close family; that's what _he'd_ said wasn't it? And then he had a friend, and then he didn't.

XXXX

Mrs. Hudson had a network worthy almost of the late Sherlock Holmes. It was no coincidence that Detective Gary Lestrade found himself on a stool at the same pub that Dr. John Watson had come to drown himself in.

The owner sat a basket of fish and chips along with the mead down onto the table though neither of the men had ordered food. Didn't matter if Sherlock was a fraud or not, the fact was, this man's food service would have been limited to a steel buffet line in a federal prison if not for Holmes and he wasn't too proud to remember that.

"Mind don't forget your cane this time, eh?" the man said with a rueful smile. "It's all on the house this time."

"Cheers," John said, raising his glass, grateful for the one public place where newspapers didn't sit willy-nilly open to the pages defaming the great Sherlock Holmes in blow by blow colour detail. They drank their first four beers in near silence.

"Got your bell rung pretty hard, eh?" Letrade said, wincing at the white bandage covering part of John's ear.

"Guess so. I don't remember most of it."

Neither of the men spoke much as they munched the fish and chips and another order appeared before them before they were finished.

"Haven't eaten much," John admitted.

"Listen, if you need any money…" Lestrade trailed off awkwardly.

"No, it's not like that."

Lestrade downed his beer for something to do.

It kind of was like _that _but John wasn't about to admit it. Damn Sherlock, he'd missed more work over that big headed git.

"You know he left money with Mrs. Hudson for me?" Watson said angrily, slopping his beer onto the table in a gesture. "Like I needed an allowance or something. Like I was pathetic without him."

And his cane took that opportunity to clunk to the floor loudly proclaiming him a loser. John picked up the offending object and threw it across the room, hitting a large sailor in the arm.

Why the hell were there sailors here? Really! Sailors? Really! Oh come on!

And sure enough they came over to the table. And they were mad.

"Gentlemen, slurred Lestrade fumbling for his badge that he hadn't actually replaced since Sherlock stole his last one, being that he'd been off on stress leave for a few days and then on desk duty filing out report after report on just why his department had been consulting with a criminal.

"I'm a cop. No, really. I am."

That didn't impress the sailors much.

John fished in his shirt for his dog tags. It was the one thing he'd accepted from Mrs. Hudson from the flat since Sherlock …

"Look, gents, I'm really sorry. It's just that my girlfriend broke up with me just now because I was injured in Afghanistan." John slammed his mobile down on the table into a spilled puddle of beer for affect.

Minutes later the two sailors had joined in the sad celebration. In a tale worthy of Sherlock, John had convinced them that his girlfriend had left with another man because he ran out of money while not working during his unsuccessful recovery. After the sailors left, John wore a Cheshire cat grin.

"What are you smiling about? Not that I'm not happy to see you smile," Lestrade said.

"Nothing, just a memory," Watson said. "Of something Sherlock would have liked."

XXXX

Donovan stomped into the precinct, shook her umbrella all over Lestrade's desk and dumped a sheaf of paper onto her own desk going through it until she found the ones she was looking for. She'd never looked so out of sorts before. Well, unless Sherlock was around. Lestrade stopped himself from looking over his shoulder. A ghost Sherlock would be much worse than the real thing but he was a miss. Kept things interesting. And truth be told, Lestrade didn't believe the tale to be told in full yet. He was a detective despite what Sherlock might have told him times out of count. He could sense things, he could feel things, it just took him longer.

"Who pissed in your Cornflakes?" Lestrade asked Donovan.

"Someone trashed my car last night. When I called in, I told the desk sergeant who I was and it still took them twenty minutes to make it to my flat. By then Anderson, I mean…" she trailed off as Anderson limped into view.

"I was uh, visiting. Yes, visiting, Donovan here when we heard someone smashing her car windows. I went out to stop it and I was jumped. Two crazy blokes yelling about stealing a veteran's girlfriend or something."

"Awful, just bloody, awful. Yep, awful," Lestrade choked out, picking up his glass of seltzer water for his stomach to muffle his laugh. He made a mental note to call John to check up on him, they were both pretty wasted when they'd left the pub last night.

Donovan sighed in frustration. Lestrade was wistful. Right about now Sherlock would be telling them all what she and Anderson had for dinner the night before based on some deductive reasoning as he'd called it. And suddenly Lestrade couldn't contain himself.

From the bruise under your left eye, Anderson, I'd say one of your attackers had a tattoo on his right forearm, probably naval in origin, the other one, slightly shorter, had blonde hair, there's one stuck to your coat and Donovan has…"

Anderson looked over his shoulder and batted at thin air as if swatting an invisible bug.

"How do you know that?" Donovan demanded, apparently infected with the same, elusive species. "You haven't even read the report…"

"Told you he'd get the last word," Lestrade said under his breath as he strode into the kitchenette for a cup of coffee. "Good one, John."

A/N So at last a word from John. Hope you enjoyed his little bit of revenge against Donovan and Anderson. Thanks so much for the reviews, follows and favourites. They make me smile, they make my fingers fly faster over the keyboard, too. Please review if you have time. Have a great day.


	5. Chapter 5

"You have to get up and try to walk around a bit today, Sherlock," Mycroft commanded but by now it sounded more like a plea to a petulant child from an exhausted parent. The thick, blue velvet curtains slid back to reveal a grey sky that did nothing to cheer the room.

"Handcuff," Sherlock reminded his older brother, rattling the chain for effect.

"Well of course I'm going to unlock you to get up," Mycroft told his little brother. "I locked you up for your own good. I have to sleep sometime after all and you must realize you can't leave."

"Then why should I get up?" Sherlock sulked.

Mycroft counted to ten for the thirty-third time that day.

"I'm not going to explain science to you of all people, Sherlock," Mycroft scolded. "Agent Fields reported a rattle in your chest, and if you don't get up a bit today, you're going to end up with pneumonia. You had that twice when you were a child … you wouldn't remember but it increases your chances exponentially."

"Agent Fields couldn't hear a rattle in a rattlesnake, he's got to be deaf from that infernal, backfiring, American gas guzzler he insists on driving," Sherlock scoffed, blowing an infuriating raspberry at his brother. "Field Agent Fields, clever Mycroft. Please."

"He's a doctor, Sherlock. One of the best, do you think I'd let him touch you if he wasn't?" Mycroft said indignantly wondering how in the hell his brother knew what kind of car his agent drove.

"I didn't need a doctor. Molly had everything under control," Sherlock replied.

"You were nearly dead when they brought you here," Mycroft reminded the pale figure in the bed.

"Ah, but I _am_ dead, says so right here," Sherlock said, holding up the morning paper.

"I should never have let you have that," Mycroft sighed unlocking the cuff from his brother's wrist. Sherlock winced as he rubbed the bruises the cuff left behind. It had been a rough night. As he rubbed circulation back in to his aching wrist and hand, a flash of emotion crossed Mycroft's face that he couldn't quite place.

Ah, concern. That was it. He was always telling John how concerned he was about Sherlock. Concern was different than caring, different than liking or god forbid, loving. There was no love loss here. Never would be.

Sherlock shifted and bit back a cry as he gripped the sides of the bed. Mycroft didn't reach to help his brother. It would never be accepted. He just stood over the bed, arms folded with no intention of leaving him in peace until he'd done what he was told.

Sherlock was in a full sweat as he stood by the door of the loo down the hall leaning on his IV pole because God knew he would never lean on his brother.

"Th-there. Happy now?" he blurted.

"Ecstatic," Mycroft sneered.

"I want to take a shower," Sherlock told his brother.

"Ms. Hooper gave you a sponge bath this morning before she left, Sherlock. I really think you should lie down again now."

Was that a blush on Sherlock's face? It was.

"Oh please, when have you ever been modest? I had to apologize to the Queen from your last visit to Buckingham. We didn't know she was there. To this day she thinks you were a nude model for a bust the grandchildren ordered for the garden. It cost us a fortune for that statue and I had to provide your measurements to the sculptor taken from nude coverage from the hidden CCTV's around the palace the day you insisted on being a child and refusing to be dressed. "Mycroft pinched the bridge of his nose and looked like he wanted to swat away the memory. "To this day I take the long way 'round the garden to avoid your uh, shall we say, _cheekbones._"

For a second Sherlock looked like he might smile and crack the concrete visage that rivaled his twin's face in that garden but then he leaned heavily against the wallpaper leaving a sweaty handprint behind when he wiped his brow.

"I just need a cool shower. I - I'm a bit hot. It's so h-hot in here Mycroft."

Sherlock slapped the hand that reached for his brow away. The hand found its mark anyway.

"Sherlock, listen." Mycroft's tone was gentled. "I think you have a fever. Let's get you back to bed and I'll get you some cold cloths."

When Sherlock succumbed to the reasoning of his big brother, his big brother became = concerned. "Okay, I'm going to run you a small bath. I don't think you have the strength to stand in the shower anyway. We've got to get your temperature down and cold cloths aren't going to do it."

Sherlock sat shivering in the cool tub looking utterly betrayed and defeated. His red nose perceived Jasmine. Molly's hair had smelled of Jasmine when she'd secretly kissed his forehead before she left as he feigned sleep. An ounce of the Jasmine shampoo in the elegant glass bottle on the shelf above the tub was missing. A small drop of the liquid remained on the outside of the stopper. Sherlock sat blinking at it, the time between his blinks getting shorter and shorter, his chin lowering to his chest as he tried to calculate how much of this particular shampoo he'd need based on his curly hair versus Molly's straight hair. When did these things become so strenuous? _Oh, yeah, concussion…_

"Wet your head, it'll cool you down faster and you can get out," Mycroft ordered his brother. "Mind the stitches on your forehead and don't wet them."

Sherlock shot daggers at his brother with his eyes. The rush of water down his back left him gasping for air and he leaned into the warmth of his brother's hand on his brow against his will.

"A couple more minutes," Mycroft whispered and the scent of Jasmine became stronger as it was rubbed into his hair and rinsed away. Apparently Mycroft knew how much shampoo to use. Damn him.

"S-stop it, Mycroft," Sherlock pleaded but the ministrations didn't stop until the last bubble ran down his cheek past his chest. He hated that his headache was gone and that it came back with a vengeance when Mycroft complied with his command and left him be. Because Mycroft didn't care, he was concerned and that was more than Sherlock wanted.

Mycroft drained the tub and handed Sherlock a robe. Sherlock scowled as he brushed his teeth while Mycroft sat on his throne keeping watch. Because he didn't care. He was concerned. After a few moment's privacy in the loo, Sherlock was escorted back to bed. It was tempting to bolt for the stairs but it was a long way down. Just thinking about falling down them made Sherlock's stomach squirm though he hadn't eaten in days.

Mycroft took Sherlock's wrist and fumbled with the key to the cuffs. Sherlock turned his head, unable to fight it with anything other than an angry glare at the opposite wall. When Mycroft put his hand down on the bedcovers without locking the cuff, Sherlock's head turned back to his brother against his will. Mycroft pulled up a chair and picked up a book and began reading out loud. Sherlock would have preferred the cuff.

"Don't need a – babysitter, Mycroft. Good God, didn't you spend – half of your life complaining about having to _deal with me _when we were younger?" Sherlock spat bitterly. "Why do you follow me around?"

Mycroft opened his mouth to retort in that grand fashion of his but Sherlock's eyes were already closed and his head turned away. He didn't owe Sherlock an explanation. He'd been young too when his parents had been killed and yes, he'd _dealt_ with his little brother the best he could at the time. Still was.

XXXX

Molly wore the clothing that had been left for her by Agent Fields, the identical jeans, blue sweater and umbrella that the agent who'd been filling in for her had worn while proving that Molly Hooper had not spent several days away from home. The key clicked in the lock and the door swung open but the usual welcome from her cat, Bonesaw didn't greet her ears.

"Bonesaw?" Molly called quietly. "Oh, you're mad at me for being gone. That agent better have fed and watered you, that was the deal," Molly said with annoyance as the stench of unchanged litter box hit her. Molly gathered Chinese food containers from the coffee table as she made her way in to the kitchen to dispose of them. Sure, she'd left wrappers and such from take away on the table before but she'd always tidied up in the morning. This doppelganger of hers was sure a slob.

Her fingers found the light switch on the kitchen wall and she clicked it but not before tripping over something in the darkness. A shoe was the offender, the identical shoe that was now on her own foot. The shoe that should have been on the foot of the agent who was supposed to have left by now…

"Hello?" Molly called timidly. A cupboard door banged open and Bonesaw leapt out at her, winding around her legs and meowing with enthusiasm. Bonesaw's water and food dishes were empty. If the agent was still in the flat she was going to be told off.

Molly filled the dishes and Bonesaw gave one more round of purring and leg winding and tore into the food. Molly made her way upstairs calling softly. She was mad at the agent who was supposed to double for her but on the other hand she didn't want to be met by a gun in the face either. The bathroom door was shut but not locked. Molly knocked and turned the handle when no reply was given. She stumbled back almost to the head of the stairs, grabbing the railing just before she fell. _Agent_ Molly Hooper, whoever she really was, was dead. A single bloody hole in the middle of her forehead showed that she probably hadn't suffered, probably dead before her body fell into the bathtub. Molly told herself that, analyzed the situation as if she was at her lab. Sure it was her home, it was her bathtub, it was even her robe splattered in blood wrapped around what could be her twin. What should have been her.

Molly closed the bathroom door, letting her shaking legs carry her down to the living room. She snapped light switches off as she flew around the room and drew the curtains shut. Her stomach turned as she saw the litter in the small alcove off the living room, it was clean, the stench that first greeted her when she'd entered had been familiar to her from work and she'd denied it. That was her, always denying the infallible truth. She picked up the phone almost expecting the lines to have been cut like some old horror movie. What did axe murderers do these days in the age of mobiles and satellite phones? Didn't matter, a phone hadn't helped the dead agent upstairs.

Molly dialed Lestrade's mobile phone but hung up before it was answered. She dialed only one number short of John's before canceling. And then it hit her. They must be dead already. They didn't have a doppelganger to bite the bullet for them like she had. Someone knew Sherlock was alive and it was only a matter of time before they found him.

Molly dialed the number she'd remembered from Sherlock's mobile. The fatigued voice of Mycroft Holmes answered.

XXXX

Molly apologized through heavy tears to Bonesaw as she tipped the huge bag of cat food onto the floor to look like an accident so he'd have enough to eat. She'd always scolded him for sitting on the sink while she combed her hair and trying to drink out of the faucet as she brushed her teeth. She turned the tap on a drip to allow him water until someone would discover that she was dead. With one last pat on the large, fluffy, grey head, the door closed on the darkness within as Molly slipped over the back fence and made for the roundabout. A car backfiring sent her sprawling to the ground covering her head expecting bullets. She got up shakily and ran until she reached the location Mycroft had arranged to meet her to take her back to the mansion.

A/N Thank you for the kind encouragement in reviews. I couldn't resist making Sherlock a permanent resident of Buckingham, hope you enjoyed that part. We haven't seen any of season 3 yet in Canada and I'm looking forward to it. Please review if you have time.


	6. Chapter 6

Mycroft was on the phone when Molly was brought to his study. The _safe _house, so quiet before was now filled with agents as Mycroft gave orders.

"Yes, break the story now and then assign protection to Lestrade, Watson and Hudson. By no means should they be allowed to view the body." Even as Mycroft talked he turned on a television that appeared when two oak panels slid to reveal it from behind an ostentatious painting of a gilded bowl of fruit. An eager news woman stood across the street from Molly's home which was surrounded by police tape and barricades. Even Mycroft paused in his orders as the flashing blue and red lit up the dark paneled room and played across his pale face from the screen. Molly shredded a tissue in her shaking fingers. It never occurred to her before tonight that the victims that lay on her slabs came from homes sometimes, homes just like her own.

The dead agent was ensconced in the black bag pushed by two men in black suits lit up with blue flares of camera flashes crossed by spinning red and blue police car lights in an eerie paparazzi like chase until it disappeared, probably forever into a black unmarked van.

"No, she can't be taken to St. Bartholomew's, you buffoon. Handle this, it's what we pay you for," Mycroft said without any room for negotiation before hanging up the rather too large receiver of the antique iron phone with his regular dignity despite the scowl on his face. His black leather chair swung to face Molly.

"The agent was to have left your flat before you arrived obviously," Mycroft shrugged. The agent who was supposed to see to details has been … well, let's just say that person doesn't work for us anymore."

Molly opened her mouth to speak but the huge iron phone rang and Mycroft answered it without even looking at her. Molly left the room unfettered by the many agents who she had supposed would follow her. She reached the top of the winding staircase and wished for a sign board with a _you are here_ sort of map to find which room Sherlock was staying in. Over the last couple of days she'd taken two different sets of stairs and this wasn't one of them. No one had asked her if she was okay – and that was okay, after all she worked in a morgue, right?

_You do matter, Molly, you always have…_

She wondered if he'd still think that. If she'd just done what he'd asked, that agent who'd stood in for her would still be alive; surely that nameless soul mattered to someone and that someone would about now be getting a visit from a random person in a black suit with bad news for their ears only and an unmarked grave plot that they can't visit until the death was unclassified.

After ten minutes Molly's fingers turned the crystal doorknob expecting a creak of the great oak door in a homestead so aged but it was silent like the figure in the bed. John had often complained to her of Sherlock's cat-like sensibilities where sleep was concerned; he literally heard a pin drop, John had tried that on more than one occasion when Sherlock had complained of excessive noise whilst he slept despite the fact that he had zero consideration for John's sleep, at times even playing the violin all night during a particularly ugly case.

She couldn't help it, her hand reached automatically to brush a stray curl from Sherlock's forehead. Her reward was a vice-like grip of the offending appendage.

"Ouch!" Molly yelped, attempting to withdraw her intrusion.

Sherlock's eyes opened and gentled from narrow slits to wide opened confusion. He let go of her hand immediately.

"I'm sorry," Sherlock panted as though he'd run a marathon in his dreams. Molly casually glanced at the heart monitor. His heart would tend to agree with her.

"No, I'm sorry; I shouldn't have sneaked up on you like that. I was only watching you sleep … I mean, coming to see you. I certainly wasn't just standing there in the doorway watching you breathe or anything…"

For once, Sherlock had no words. He didn't have the capacity to look sheepish or abashed but silence would do. They would never speak of this. Not that there was anything to speak of no matter how much Molly would want that.

"How are you feeling?"

Instead of answering, Sherlock studied her.

"I'm feeling like you have something to tell me about why you left home so suddenly, wearing something you'd never normally wear to visit my brother in this stuffy old mausoleum," Sherlock replied searching her with his eyes for more clues lest she hesitate to tell him the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help her God.

"Ohhh, uh, about that, Mycroft warned me not to upset you," Molly stammered which was exactly what _not _to say to Sherlock Holmes.

With a grimace of pain Sherlock sat up and fumbled around in his bed for the button to take the rails down. Both arms folded over his chest protectively as his legs swung out over the bed.

"What did he do now?" Sherlock gasped angrily attempting to stand.

"Nothing, Sherlock, please be calm. You're supposed to be quiet and get up slowly for short periods; you're not supposed to have any excitement."

"I'm not going to the fair, Molly – I'm going downstairs to find out what my _dear_ brother is up to."

"Okay, I'll tell you what happened, only please get back into bed," Molly pleaded, wishing those words were under entirely different circumstances.

When Sherlock complied with the command she knew there was no way he could make it down those stairs anyway. Mycroft was safe as long as there was a floor between him and his brother.

"While I was here with you, a female agent was at my flat pretending to be me to throw off Moriarty … I mean, his men … because you said he was dead. Anyway, when I got home last night, the agent … she was dead, shot in the head. I snuck out and … and…" Molly's lower lip trembled.

"Molly, that infernal hairball, Bonesaw will be fine," Sherlock said, reading the expression on Molly's face as he absent mindedly picked a cat hair from her sweater just under her left breast and flicked it onto Mycroft's immaculately clean floors. "You did well to leave the cat there. Taking him would have given away the fact that you're alive."

The compliment didn't make her feel any better. Molly's hand found the spot Sherlock had touched. Even through the wool and still more cat hair where she'd hugged Bonesaw tightly before leaving, she could still feel the imprint of his finger lingering there like electricity. She almost didn't notice Sherlock stand up again.

"And John? Mrs. Hudson? Lestrade? Where are they? What's happened to them?" Sherlock said, his groggy mind catching up with his fears.

"Your brother has them being watched without their knowing as we speak," Molly said, guiding the young detective back to bed and trying to flip the rails up to keep him there."

"Not good enough," Sherlock insisted. "Get my brother now."

Molly stammered a bit, but being used to the abrupt orders she complied. The route Mycroft took to his brother's side was obviously much shorter than the one she'd endured moments before.

"What is it, Sherlock?" Mycroft said dismissively, standing in the doorway to block it lest the still sitting younger brother should try to leave.

"Mycroft, someone killed that agent thinking she was Molly. Even now they'll be onto the others if they haven't already succeeded. You haven't a clue as to how powerful Moriarty's network is. You need to…"

"I have it taken care of, now lie back or I'll have Agent Fields sedate you again," Mycroft ordered.

Molly stepped in front of Sherlock out of pure instinct. Though it was evident by the pallour of the detective's face that he shouldn't be sitting upright, there was no way that agent was going to shoot him up to shut him down ever again. She'd broken her promise to Sherlock once; she would never do it again.

Mycroft tried to sidestep Molly, his face showing that he clearly thought she'd be intimidated by his significantly taller frame. Molly stepped in time to his attempts in a ridiculous dance until Sherlock lied down of his own accord, unable to sit any longer. Mycroft used this advantage to tower over his brother, looking down on him from behind Molly's protective stance but at the same time he pulled the blanket up to his little brother's waist before turning to stoke the fire.

"Look, Sherlock. Both of us know this isn't ideal but we promised mummy we'd look out for each other and…"

"Mycroft, your protection – it's – it's not enough. There's something wrong with … Um-"

"Sherlock…" Mycroft began in a tone he fished from somewhere in their past. "You're still suffering from concussion, let us handle this. When you're better we'll include you."

Why couldn't he think! God damn it! There was a hole in Mycroft's network. Sherlock knew it. What the hell was it again? Was this what it was like to be everyone else; to have something on the tip of your tongue all the time and not be able to articulate it or pull it from the recesses of your shrunken brain?

"Um…" Sherlock's hand went to his forehead where it thudded dully several times as if he was trying to expel a thought like water from the ear after swimming in the ocean. Lestrade, Hudson and Watson were in danger – from the inside somehow. Sherlock knew it. Molly's doppelganger was dead. Someone knew it wasn't her, surely. The reason, whatever it was danced around in Sherlock's head avoiding his vocal chords and mouth despite how hard he tried to spit it out and every time he tried to think of what it was. a noise in his shredded memory jolted his body, making Mycroft look at Molly in that _I told you so_ kind of way as if it was some sort of withdrawal body tick.

"My network is fine. The world isn't going to come to a screeching halt because the great mind of Sherlock Holmes isn't on the case," Mycroft snapped even as he picked up a pitcher of water and refilled the empty glass beside his brother's bed. "In fact, if you recall, you even messed up one of my greatest solutions with that airliner fiasco with your loose lips. Now for once, just please let me do my job and look after you."

"And your _job,_" Sherlock said quietly sounding more hurt than Molly thought possible. "Looking out for me included you telling Moriarty about how our parents burned to death, how you heroically pulled me from the flames; how I had nightmares about burning? You gave me to him; you gave him the one thing I'm scared of, burning and he's used it against me in every scheme, threatened to, let me see, oh yes, burn the heart out of me. He couldn't have known that – I never told a living soul."

Mycroft's face remained impassive but his eyes burned. Molly didn't move, the air between the brothers might as well have been on fire.

"Dr. Fields told me to expect that the patient might experience some anxieties, heightened emotions and angry outbursts for some time, a result of the concussion and the drugs," Mycroft told Molly. "If he tries to get up again, push that button. I'm still on damage control." Mycroft hastily shoved a book that sat on the shiny bedside table back onto the bookshelf. And then he was gone.

Molly sat down beside Sherlock's bed. The _brother_ had been reduced to the _patient_ in one fell swoop and _concern_ had all sorts of meaning. Said patient's pupils were still disproportionately large with concussion and a headache showed in the frown lines that formed on his forehead.

Usually it was so easy to throw up a shield, to defend himself. So what the hell were the tears all about? He'd swallowed his fair share of them in the past; after all, he _was_ high functioning. It wasn't like he didn't feel; just feelings had no purpose, got in the way, clouded logic which was the only thing that ever mattered. Bloody concussions!

"I'm scared too, Sherlock," Molly whispered, fearing too that her suggesting she'd heard his confession about burning would reduce her to the _ acquaintance _as easily as Mycroft had reduced him to the _patient. _Then again she wasn't sure what she was to him anyway. She mattered, for now…

Sherlock closed his eyes, locking out the Molly that sat before him trembling with the tension in the air she'd just been party to. _Scared._ Molly had used that word earlier in describing her escape from her flat … There had been a noise, she'd fallen … There had been a noise when he'd fallen too. And he'd heard it since then…

"What!" Sherlock yelled. "What the hell is it!"

Molly held her breath waiting for Mycroft to no doubt hear the outburst from the patient and send someone to see to it. So she did the only thing she could think of.

"Sherlock you git! How could you?" She yelled to cover up his further rants about a noise that meant Mycroft was wrong and he was right.

Sherlock continued to mutter confused, strung together words that had no rhyme or reason until he exhausted himself and fell into a fitful sleep filled with loud noises, one which reverberated in his head over and over and over again.

BANG!

A/N So Sherlock's starting to put two and two together but with his concussion, the answer isn't four yet. Do you have a suspect yet? Please leave a review if you can and thanks so much for the reviews, favourites and follows, they make me smile.


	7. Chapter 7

Sherlock's eyes opened, the blurry image of Molly sleeping in the wingback next to his bed coming slower into focus than it should have. He blinked several times and knuckled his eye sockets which only proved to make his eyes water. The muted lamps in the corner might as well have been fluorescent in his squinted gaze around the room. He'd gotten his wish then; Mycroft had stopped the pain medication. Sherlock had hoped it was the meds that had flooded the new moat around his mind palace and upped the entrance fee to one he couldn't afford but it was irrefutable now, concussions sucked.

Sherlock contemplated waking Molly to tell her about the sound that reverberated around in his brain over and over again, that sent ominous shudders through his pain wracked body, but he didn't want to sound like one of those idiots standing in an auto repair shop blowing raspberries and making weird grinding noises to describe their auto's maladies to the man in the white coat. Damn concussions. What was it?

That noise associated itself with annoyance, danger, physical pain in his body and mind. Sherlock closed his eyes. Phantom exhaust invaded his nose as the noise banged in his mind again and his stomach swooped as he fell for the hundredth time in two days. The landing, instead of blackness showed him the dead faces of Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson … John.

Sherlock tried to sit. He bit his lip against the pain. He'd told Mycroft that his friends were not safe but Mycroft was like him, damn it. Hard proof would be all that would move him into action.

Footsteps were heard in the hallway. Sherlock braced himself for another visit with Dr. Fields but the footsteps were Mycroft's and the familiar dread that always seemed to precede the agent didn't wind its long reach into the room before he entered. It wasn't so much quieter; it was more the absence of sound.

"What's happening, Mycroft and don't lie to me," Sherlock whispered around the corner before his brother even entered.

"I've sent a few operatives to collect Lestrade, Hudson and Watson. You seemed worried about them," Mycroft replied, something hidden in his hurt tone that seemed so out of place.

That should have pleased him and he knew it, so why was he laying there like an ungrateful houseguest? It had been his idea that the three were not safe out in London with protection that was no match for Moriarty's network in the first place. Sherlock turned his head and looked at his reflection in the wall mirror, his still huge pupils mocking him for thinking that his clarity was back.

"Thank you," Sherlock said meekly.

Mycroft's mouth opened in an undignified gloat but the hand that rested on his brother's shoulder was genuine in its comfort. "Please try to rest or you're going to get that pneumonia the doctor's been promising if you don't," Mycroft said tiredly. Reluctantly Sherlock complied, having no choice and Mycroft stood watching the two sleeping friends for a few minutes. For someone who was so callous and seemingly uncaring, his little brother had some devout friends.

XXXX

When Sherlock woke again he didn't hear the expected noises. Sure, the mansion was huge but Mrs. Hudson's and John Watson's angry questions should have been permeating the entire premises about now. Why weren't they told Sherlock was alive? Didn't Mycroft have a heart for their suffering? Didn't Sherlock know how much he'd hurt them … but there was only silence. If his friends were here, they'd be in his room yelling at him and god forbid, hugging him. Sherlock had to know where they were, that they were safe. Mycroft had his chance. His minions were too slow – and dangerous for reasons Sherlock couldn't deduce.

Molly didn't notice when her mobile left her pocket. When she stirred, Sherlock shushed and stroked her forehead like she'd done to him, a joke ready on his lips about how they'd slept together if she woke.

Sherlock took a deep breath and dialed the least painful of the three numbers first. With any luck, he could avoid the other two and leave it to someone who was at least used to giving bad news to people … or good news, however they'd take his not being dead. He cringed as car tires screeching told him that Lestrade had answered his mobile while driving.

"Bloody effing hell!" Lestrade shouted into his ear and his voice never sounded sweeter despite the paragraph or two of swearing that followed.

Sounding very much like Mycroft, Sherlock directed Lestrade to observe the overhead red light cameras and cars in front and behind him.

"You shouldn't have called. You know what this means, don't you? I have to arrest you. I've been nearly fired for all this," Lestrade muttered even as he complied with the orders.

"There's no warrant for my arrest, Greg," Sherlock told the cop which earned him the silence through shock value he needed to give further instructions. The "I'm so sorry," that was tacked on later slipped out of its own accord.

Sherlock couldn't tell Lestrade why he needed to lose the agents who were following him and collect Mrs. Hudson and John on some story that they should all go to lunch at Mycroft's and he needed to beat his brother's agents back to the mansion. He didn't know why, the answer was still locked deep within the heavily guarded mind palace and right now he'd love nothing better than to shoot the guards and storm it to get his answers.

"No, don't tell them I'm alive. Listen, Lestrade, John has a gun; tell him to bring it.

"I knew it was him that killed that cabbie that day," Lestrade grated and Sherlock was pleased to be able to identify the sound of his left fist hitting the dashboard.

Just as Lestrade and Sherlock hung up, Molly stirred, her eyes opening and blinking blearily at the sun that peaked over the windowsill defiantly against a backdrop of more rain clouds. Something from his past made Sherlock act fast; something about how silly women were…

"What are you doing with my mobile?" Molly asked as she stretched her strained neck.

"Um, taking a picture of you waking up, it's not every day we sleep together," Sherlock said trying to sound sweet and apparently succeeding when Molly smiled bashfully at him and lightly punched him on the arm which hurt surprisingly a lot.

"We didn't sleep together, I mean, we slept, together - but not together-together, oh you really are incorrigible sometimes you know that?" she yawned.

The sun peaked up a bit further and Sherlock discovered highlights in Molly's hair he'd never seen before and he realized he'd never seen her in the sun, only in basements and dark apartments. He hesitated before handing her back the mobile after taking her picture and giving her one his best smiles which wasn't as forced as he'd expected.

…and that ladies and gentlemen is why Sherlock chose not to show emotions; he'd gotten distracted by the flecks of copper in her hair that he never knew were there. He had to tell Molly what was going on, well as far he understood it so far, she was going to find out soon anyway and he needed her. Again. Damn it.

Molly I know I've asked a lot of you and I don't know why but I hope you'll trust me again. I haven't figured things out yet," Sherlock said, not letting the _yet_ part get in the way of his false confidence as he told her about calling Lestrade.

Molly was stunned. Until now the older Holmes brother had been in charge despite Sherlock's misgivings. Sherlock felt something he couldn't place when Molly agreed without question to go downstairs and tell Mycroft what he'd done. While he listened to Molly's steps die away downstairs he braced himself for the indignant onslaught that would come when Mycroft found out he'd been undermined.

But it never happened.

"Sherlock, Mycroft went out. He was just getting into a car. I tried to wave him down but he told me to go back inside. Told me to take care of you while he and Agent Fields attended to urgent business that no one else could deal with, so that's good eh? You'll be able to greet John, Mrs. Hudson and Greg without a fight from him first."

And then a car backfired and any colour Sherlock's cheeks had gained in the past day drained away.

"No … Mycroft … NO!" Sherlock yelled. Molly couldn't restrain him from getting to his feet and stumbling to the window which he clumsily threw open.

"No = God No," he whispered to the chilly morning air.

"He'll be back soon, probably, Sherlock. Don't worry," Molly soothed awkwardly. Sherlock had never fretted over his brother's absence; in fact he seemed to prefer it. Concussions really were strange things.

"No, you don't understand – um…" Sherlock closed his eyes. That noise. It was there when he fell. It was there when Molly ran for her life from her flat yet it hadn't rendered assistance. It was there when Agent Fields was dismissed for the day the first time Sherlock had been under his care.

"Agent Fields, he's a – double agent. He's working for Moriarty," Sherlock asserted bypassing his bed to make for the door.

"What are you talking about, Sherlock? Listen, you're concussed and I know you think you're brilliant – and you are," she added, "but if you really think that, I'll go get one of the agents downstairs right now but you have to stay here and get back into bed."

Her tone told him she didn't believe him but the fact that she was willing to go get one of the agents downstairs touched him. She really would do anything for him even if it meant looking like a fool. The agents would never believe them.

"No, they could be working for Moriarty too," Sherlock told her, his eyes wild. "And I know my brother; if he left with Agent Fields voluntarily he'd have come up here to warn me to be good for whatever new doctor he assigned in Field's absence. My brother, as he always asserts is … concerned, always. – And Mycroft always uses his own driver."

"Sherlock how do you know all of this?" Molly asked, looking over her shoulder as if expecting any moment for a rogue agent to come upstairs to assassinate them. She hadn't told him that Mycroft had gotten into Agent Field's jalopy.

"The noise, Molly, the noise," Sherlock explained as he reached for his dressing gown.

"What noise?" Molly asked, threading the IV through the armhole.

"When I jumped – fell – um, there was a noise like a gunshot which I quickly assessed as a backfire; it spooked a cyclist who ran into John knocking him down. When you ran from your apartment you thought you'd heard gunfire because you'd been conditioned to expect it from seeing that agent with the hole in her forehead; just now Mycroft left with Fields who drives a car that backfires … but it might as well be a gunshot – he has my brother, Molly and it's all my fault."

"Okay, so I can't go downstairs and get help from one of the agents, what _can _I do?"

"Help me downstairs; tell them that you're a doctor – well you are – and that you're taking me outside for fresh air for a few minutes. Call Lestrade and have him meet us at the end of drive."

"Sherlock I can't take you downstairs, your ribs…"

"There's a service elevator at the rear. We'll take that. If I know my brother he'll have bought a wheelchair," Sherlock gasped, the effort of getting into the dressing gown sapping his low reserves.

Sherlock's white knuckles gripped the IV pole as it wheeled down the carpeted hallways with Molly's help. The ding of the elevator made them both jump. Three floors felt like ten as the old contraption opened on the first floor and Molly opened the gate that in its day had been lifted by white gloved operators.

Sure enough an agent sat by the back door.

"Mr. Holmes, I think you should be getting back to your room, Agent Fields instructions," the burly man told them, his arms folded.

"I'm Dr. Molly Hooper, agent?"

"Bartley, Miss," the agent supplied.

"Then I'm sure Agent Fields also told you that this man has a history of pneumonia and as the only doctor here now I've prescribed ten minutes of fresh air and a tiny bit of physiotherapy to avoid the onset. I'm sure the elder Mr. Holmes would be very upset if his brother comes down with further illness. Now, you can fetch us some blankets and the wheelchair Mr. Holmes purchased for just such exercise or you can explain why his brother sickened further."

The man seemed torn for a moment.

_Please let Mycroft have bought a wheelchair, please let there be a wheelchair_, Molly chanted in her head even as Sherlock swayed alarmingly beside her. When Bartley left and returned with said wheelchair, Molly breathed again which was more than she could say for the silent figure beside her. Sherlock choked back pain he was hiding convincingly from all but her. He sat down in a dignified position as Molly took the blanket offered by Bartley and thanked him curtly for opening the door.

"Ten minutes, Miss," Bartley said with authority, nodding to an agent outside who was texting on his mobile. The agent looked up at them without concern, nodded back to his colleague who seemed mollified before closing the door after them and went back to his texts. How far could a person in a wheelchair go anyway, the drive and pathways were cobbled for their convenience after all, heritage was never concerned with accessibility.

Sherlock asked for Molly's mobile and tried to call Lestrade again. Agent Text-too-much looked up at them as the mobile refused to work even as his own fingers glided across his in success. A thrill of horror raced up Sherlock's spine. They knew. They all knew and he'd lured his friends into a death trap and this time, Mycroft, the one man who had always saved him was as much as a victim as they were.

"Don't suppose you could order us up some Chinese take away?" Sherlock smiled over at the man. "Green Jelly's starting to get to me."

The man shook his head with a polite smile, both parties keeping up the ruse. Molly's legs shook as she pushed the wheelchair with concerted effort over the cobblestones.

"Molly," Sherlock whispered. "There's an intercom by the front gate and a landline to call the main house but it has an outside line as well. Push me over there and um … I'll think of something. Tell Lestrade to meet us on the road on the Northwest corner of the estate by the horse stables, they're disused and no one will be there."

Molly did as she was told, cursing the whole way. Just as they approached the gates Sherlock cried out loudly and fell forward onto the ground. The immediate change to sickly green tinged skin told Molly that only half of the theatrics was fake, that had to hurt falling like that with broken ribs rattling around inside him.

Agents ran to the stricken man immediately and Molly made sure they were engaged as she sprinted for the intercom system. Lestrade wanted answers to his questions he bellowed into the phone but agreed to meet them at the horse stables.

A/N And this is where the action begins. Dun Dun Dun! Thanks so much for the encouraging reviews, favourites and follows, they are appreciated very much.


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